Justice Goodwin Liu

Newest Supreme Court Justice Speaks on Campus

Justice Goodwin Liu, the youngest and newest member of the California Supreme Court, spoke to Pacific McGeorge students on April 11, in the Legal Studies Center Grand Salon.

Liu spoke about his meteoric legal career in, "Insights into the Journey to Become a Judge," which was sponsored by the Asian/Pacific American Law Student Association.

The 41-year-old Liu was appointed as an associate justice of the high court in July 2011 and sworn in to succeed the retiring Associate Justice Carlos Moreno last September. Prior to the gubernatorial appointment, Liu had been nominated for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Obama. He withdrew his name from consideration for the federal appellate court after strong Republican opposition in the Senate to his nomination.

Liu's parents immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in the late 1960's. A graduate of Sacramento's Rio Americano High, he earned a B.S. in biology at Stanford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

In addition to private practice and clerkships with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg, Liu has served as a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley.